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Boulder to consider fee on paper, plastic grocery bags rather than ban

City Council to discuss possible fees at Tuesday's meeting

By Mitchell Byars and Joe Rubino, Camera Staff Writers

Posted:
05/11/2012 09:18:51 PM MDT

Updated:
05/11/2012 09:24:08 PM MDT

Chris Koury puts groceries in a paper bag for a customer while working the cash register at Alfalfa s Market on Broadway in Boulder on Friday. The city is considering charging shoppers a fee to use disposable paper or plastic bags.
(
Jeremy Papasso
)

Boulder leaders next week will consider charging customers fees for paper or plastic grocery bags rather than moving to ban the disposable sacks outright.

The city took up the task of trying to reduce the use of paper and plastic bags as part of its Zero Waste Master Plan after students from Fairview High School's Net Zero Club lobbied municipal leaders for a ban on plastic grocery bags.

The City Council will not make any final decisions at its next meeting Tuesday night, but it will consider a motion aimed at providing city staffers with direction toward reducing reduce the amount of disposable bags used in Boulder.

Jamie Harkins, a business sustainability specialist with the city, said Boulder officials considered several recommendations before settling on fees, which officials hope will encourage shoppers to bring their own reusable cloth sacks to local stores.

"From listening to the community, it was pretty evenly split between a ban on plastic bags and a fee on paper or a fee on both," she said. "But overwhelmingly, people wanted to do something about this."

The feedback on the fees generally was positive at a public meeting with city staff in April. Should City Council direct the city to pursue the fee, an ordinance would have to be written up and an independent consultant brought in to help determine how much the fee would be and how to use the revenue collected.

"It mainly will depend on the kind of direction the City Council wants to go," Harkins said.

Harkins said that while stores would have to adjust their computers and retrain workers to charge the city's bag fees, there would be very little impact.

Taxes, not fees

But Mary Lou Chapman, president of the Rocky Mountain Food Industry Association, which represents grocery stores in Colorado and Wyoming, compared the fees to taxes, and said many consumers would see the fees as something the store was putting into place, not city government.

"I think this is going to simply anger some of them," she said.

Chapman also said the fee was unfairly targeting grocery stores.

"Retailers are using the exact same bags we are," she said.

The city's 45 grocery and convenience stores account for 60 to 80 percent of the city's plastic bags, officials said, with the remaining percentage coming from retail stores, takeout restaurants and other businesses.

According to a Boulder County Waste Composition Study, 781 tons of plastic retail bags ended up in the county's waste stream in 2010. That represents roughly 120 million plastic bags thrown away countywide. However, that represents just 0.4 percent of the county's entire waste stream, according to the report.

Chapman said from what she has seen in other states, bag fees generally don't reduce the use of plastic and paper bags.

"The research across the country from our various counterparts in other states doesn't show it's really a deterrent unless the fees get really high," she said.

Chapman said the city should instead focus on educating people about the impact bags have on the environment and making it easier to recycle them.

"We'd really like to see an all-out educational campaign before they start changing laws and putting in fees," she said. "And we would like to be very involved in that."

Mixed feelings

Feelings about a possible fee on grocery bags were mixed at the King Soopers at the corner of Arapahoe Avenue and 30th Street on Friday evening.

Man Zhang, who was shopping with her husband Hong Li and daughter Dou, said that, in her native China. there already are fees on plastic bags -- and she would support a similar measure in Boulder.

"I think that's a good idea," she said. "(Plastic bags) are not good for the environment."

Barbara Falace, of Louisville, said if Boulder starts charging for plastic and paper bags, she will not shop in the city.

Pinewood Springs residents Gerry and Steve Pearson proudly displayed their Earth Day 1995 reusable cloth bags when loading their groceries into their car. The couple works in Boulder and shops in town weekly, they said.

"It would mean less clogging of the landfill," Steve Pearson said of his support for a possible fee. "Most of the plastic used in plastic bags is not biodegradable."

University of Colorado student Niles Sulkko, a Boulder native, said he likes the idea for environmental reasons, but his support would depend on the cost of the fee itself.

"As a college student I don't have a lot of money, but if it's a minute amount, I probably wouldn't notice," said Sulkko, 21. "It's a very Boulder idea."

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